**Editor's Note: Martinez's response to posted comments is below as an addendum to this post.**

CARACAS – As untimely and distressing as Mr. Bush's remarks about taking war to Iran may sound to a significant part of the American public, everyone down here knows Bush's words are heavenly music to Mr. Chávez ears.

There is widespread conviction among most Venezuelans - including many of President Hugo Chávez's followers - that the threat of U.S. military intervention in Venezuela is nothing but a Chavez ruse to justify the growing militarization of our country and to discredit political dissent by labeling all of Mr. Chávez's adversaries unpatriotic, treacherous, pro-yanqui plotters.

That's why whenever George W. Bush hints at a surge or a new twist in the U.S. war on terrorism - or for that matter, U.S. war on anything or anyone - many Venezuelans cannot help shaking their heads in dismay.

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If only I were Paul Krugman, I'd try to delve into the true, long-term meaning of that 16 percent loss against the Euro. Is the dollar fundamentally weakening? Or is this two-year long plunge just a seasonal malaise? I have no way to know.

What I can tell you is what the sight of a dollar - and by that, I mean an actual one-dollar bill - means to anyone living in this populist Caribbean petro-state as it moves toward 21st-century socialism.

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